In Between: séadna
Perhaps there is no in between;
it’s either pitch black or light.
You inch forward or slip backwards,
fight each turn of day to night
imagining in fierce battle
you will lose your coward’s mask.
Believing in some great reward,
you ask your sword to hold fast.
There is no time for fool questions,
no need to see shades of gray.
Forget that distracting tension;
let play your guns, heroes say.
Perhaps there isn’t a middle
ground where opposing sides meet;
only space between the goalposts,
where cheats and ghosts find good seats.
18 MAY 2017
03.14.17
Walk Out: englyn proest gadwynog
I’m so tired of all this:
the endless sense of hopeless;
the evil creeping like mist;
the feeling ever helpless.
Walk out into the sunshine!
Find anything that’s divine:
some thing we share, yours and mine.
Look past its flaws in design,
find a world worth redeeming!
Seek what is, not the seeming:
beneath the gray – the gleaming.
Wake up! Stop death’s slow scheming.
14 MAR 2017
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The Threshing Floor: englyn cyrch
Give an answer, if you can,
where doubts plague each fighting man
weighting healthy action down
and distracting from good plans;
where blind fear is laying waste
to fresh brick and mortar paste
shielding helpless, sick and poor,
from the pike and bonfire’s baste;
where to live alone is brave,
which makes heroes from mere knaves
who seek glory for all time
in some lines from poet slaves;
where faith falters, and belief
in war’s leaders and great chiefs
leads to slaughter fresh new lambs
who learn firsthand of despair;
where if love is found at all,
it kneels at the wailing wall
and drags on through endless hours
hoping honor breaks its fall;
’til what lives to fight once more,
taught to win despite the score,
lays its weapons down and dies,
chaff dropped on the threshing floor.
06 MAR 2017
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Glory Evermore: dirge
With slow and silent steps it comes
encroaching on the day,
the shadow of the night that grows
to fill the world with gray.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.
War on its march to midnight turns
our grays to darkest black
as on a path to nothingness
it leads us ever back.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.
Replace all love with mindless fear,
and on that slippery slope
disguise all lies as honesty
and destroy morning’s hope.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.
Hear now the muffled sound of drums,
come through the morning mist,
its slow parade of death designed
to fool those who resist:
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.
Come, make believe that victory
through violence makes for right,
that wealth creates nobility,
who pay others to fight.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.
Believe that those who sign the orders
seek a better way,
that those who hold the rifles
will all see the light of day.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.
War does not make a difference,
with its patriotic zeal;
or make the steam that blows the whistle
ever turn the wheel.
Oh, come and join the battle, child,
for glory evermore.
27 FEB 2017
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Dawn Patrol: deibhidhe
Soon the sound that breaks the day
comes to chase our sleep away;
and the darkest dreams night grew
blink from black into lighter blue.
The world, barely recognized
through half-open, hazy eyes,
wakes slow with us, its warm glow
buried below the pillows.
Arise again and don your shield,
the ancient weapons you wield
against the dumb drones that come
reeking of rum and humdrum.
Be conscious now! You must choose.
Do not linger, or you lose
this moment’s span; if you can
still stand, battle is at hand.
Until the sound that stills the day
comes quietly to end the fray,
fight on fearless, king or pawn,
at every dawn, until you’re gone.
23 FEB 2017
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Imagining the Cost: common measure
For those hard up against the wall,
imagining the cost
they pay for each small victory,
compared to what is lost,
when those who may yet stand
refuse and meekly kneel,
or worse, just fold their praying hands
against reason’s appeal,
may be the hardest part.
What honor is enough,
to heal such wounds as these,
succor the sterner stuff,
when those you fight to free:
the so-called meek and mild,
deride your vanity
and chide you as a child
to put away your swords,
and fight no more anon,
since all that’s clean and good
has long been dead and gone.
13 FEB 2017
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Our Sum: clogyrnach
What a world this one’s become:
to have begun both deaf and dumb,
then learn of singing,
the art of bringing
love winging;
see it come!
Who needs make-believe, I wonder,
when there’s rain, lightning and thunder
that illuminates,
feeds our dreams and fates,
tears our states
asunder.
What a world both past and now:
the evidence that we, somehow,
will someday arrive,
and may yet survive;
we’re a live,
precious bough.
Who would destroy the great balance
that gave to us this fighting chance
to mature and grow,
to be sure and know?
Such death slows
all life’s dance.
What a world this one’s become:
we trade love songs for battle drums,
spend our lives dying,
no longer trying;
denying
our parts’ sum.
10 FEB 2017
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